Jimi Green – 3D art and animation student @ Design Centre Enmore

Animation – Assessment 1- Process Diary – Week 8

Week 8 is all about walk cycles. Leading into the next animation assessment, we start to explore the steps required to create a character walk cycle. There are certain aspects to keep in mind for a successful walk cycle –
• the arms and torso opposing the hips
• the up and down motion
• the balance of the character

other things that we must keep an eye on -• the center of gravity
• easing inand out of motions
• timing – is the cycle slow and lethargic or is there a bounciness/energy?
• the consistency of speed – is the character in a hurry?

Other tips we learned today –
• Use strong poses
• the key to a walk is the hips – the hips will generally make a figure of 8 motion
• beware of subtlety of follow through, don’t going overboard

Key positions of a walk cycle–
• Contact position – a lot of the characters ‘personality’ comes from this pose. It is the where both feet are in contact with the ground and the character is at the middle height
• the down position – where all the weight is down and ready to start the spring up. The head will be at its lowest point
• the passing position – sometimes called the breakdown – the mid-point in the motion, where one leg passes the other
• Contact – basically a mirror of the first pose

There will be plenty more talk of walk cycles in my walk cycle assessment post.